The anime discussion and recommendations thread

This is the place where you can conflab about all the other stuff besides videogames
User avatar
Scrustle
Member
Posts: 2426
Joined: November 18th, 2012, 6:02 pm

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by Scrustle »

laikamuttnik wrote:
Scrustle wrote:Recently I saw a film called Children Who Chase Lost Voices. Apparently it's also got the alternate name in the UK of Journey to Agartha, but I haven't found anywhere that actually lists the film as that outside of Wikipedia. It's a pretty good fantasy movie which is kind of in the vein of more recent Studio Ghibli works, and it looks gorgeous. The art and scenery in it are amazing, and the designs of the creatures are really great too. They're also pretty reminiscent of Ghibli stuff. It has a similar feel to it as Tales From Earthsea, although I'd say it's a better film than that. It lacks that Ghibli magic though, but no-one else can capture that so that's not necessarily a mark against the film.
I haven't seen it but would love to. It's a Makoto Shinkai film and has nothing to do with Ghibli, but apparently it pays homage to Ghibli (though some people criticise and say it's like a copy of Ghibli films). I admire Makoto Shinkai for always being creative in his own style with a small budget, but he says he tried making this film more in a rather traditional way. I'm sure it's at least much better than Tales from Earthsea, which I found low-quality and disappointing as a Ghibli film ;(
It's definitely better that Earthsea. What I meant is that it evokes the same kind of feel with its cinematography, although CHCLV does it better. There are plenty of very wide shots of sprawling meadows and grasslands, nice use of lighting, and similar architecture and character design to Earthsea. The creature designs reminded me more of Laputa or Howl's Moving Castle. I think the character choices are kind of similar too. Both gave me this feeling of being focused around children caught up in the affairs of adults, even though it's still all pretty fantastical. Or at least that's how they came across to me. But there's no question that CHCLV is the better film, even though I personally didn't think Earthsea was terrible. Just slightly below par. But I guess that counts as terrible for a Ghibli film.
User avatar
JaySevenZero
Admin
Posts: 2643
Joined: August 27th, 2012, 4:28 pm
Location: Liverpool, Europe, Earth
Contact:

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by JaySevenZero »

We watched Children Who Chase Lost Voices... last night and whilst I in no way think of it as a bad film, I do feel that Makoto Shinkai has lost a bit of his creative soul with his first major studio feature. The film as a whole feels highly derivative of a number of classics such as; Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle. I feel some of the blame should rest on the character artist Takayo Nishimura for clearly creating the characters with the visual resemblance to that of previous Ghibli creations. In fact, so blatant is some of the referencing that it was hard not to see it as deliberate.

As for the film itself, I found myself left somewhat cold by the principal characters of Asuna and Shun (I'm a little baffled why anime directors always feel the need to center these films around the younger characters? Is it because their motivations can be seen as innocent, unclouded by "adult" needs?) as I never felt her reasons for going to Agartha were always a little vague. I felt it may have been more interesting to have centered the film around the Morisaki character as his yearning to revive his dead wife was far more compelling than the teenage girl wanting to revive her first crush.

The other issue I had with the film was that it didn't seem to know where or when it was set. It starts off in what resembles contemporary Japan, has flashbacks where Morisaki's wife Risa is wearing what appears to be Victorian clothing and then another flaskback with Morisaki fighting in a bizarre Vietnam-esque battle. All this gives the film a muddled, unfocused feel whereas Miyazaki and Ghibli would always be quite clear in this regard.

Anyway, as I said it's certainly not a bad film but I felt that it lacks some of the soul and thoughtfulness of Shinkai's previous works.
User avatar
LaikaMuttnik
Member
Posts: 66
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 1:09 am
Location: From Japan; now in Liverpool UK

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by LaikaMuttnik »

Scrustle wrote:It's definitely better that Earthsea. What I meant is that it evokes the same kind of feel with its cinematography, although CHCLV does it better. There are plenty of very wide shots of sprawling meadows and grasslands, nice use of lighting, and similar architecture and character design to Earthsea. The creature designs reminded me more of Laputa or Howl's Moving Castle. I think the character choices are kind of similar too. Both gave me this feeling of being focused around children caught up in the affairs of adults, even though it's still all pretty fantastical. Or at least that's how they came across to me. But there's no question that CHCLV is the better film, even though I personally didn't think Earthsea was terrible. Just slightly below par. But I guess that counts as terrible for a Ghibli film.
As Jay wrote before me, we watched it last night (we're married; in case you didn't know :)), and I could see why people were saying it was like a copy of Ghibli films. The biggest problem for me was the character design, especially Shin and Morisaki, looked so much like Ghibli characters, I don't understand why Makoto Shinkai didn't stick with his own style of drawing, and I do get what Jay says too.
In general, though, I still quite enjoyed it. Although the story was a bit cliched, I thought the journey in the Agartha world was nicely detailed, and the sceneries and use of lighting were beautiful indeed. I liked the creature design too. Also, voice cast (Japanese professional voice actors) was excellent :D - unlike recent Ghibli films that cast celebrities (mostly famous actors, who're not capable of voice-acting) and put off lots of Japanese old Ghibli fans including myself :(
Earthsea probably wouldn't have felt that bad if it hadn't been released as a Ghibli film. It was the very first film Goro Miyazaki (son of legendary Hayao Miyazaki) directed, and I'm sure it was a lot of pressure for him, but it was just really weak and not to the standard in every aspect (picture quality, script, etc) to be part of the Ghibli brand. However, I heard the latest Ghibli film From Up on Poppy Hill directed by him did pretty well - I'll watch it at some point, though again the voice cast could be an issue for me :|
User avatar
LaikaMuttnik
Member
Posts: 66
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 1:09 am
Location: From Japan; now in Liverpool UK

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by LaikaMuttnik »

Talking of Makoto Shinkai, he has just announced his new film Kotonoha no Niwa, due out next year :)
"Distant Star's Makoto Shinkai Makes Kotonoha no Niwa Anime Film"
Imo

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by Imo »

It is perhaps a cop out but everything that Jaysevenzero and Laikamuttnik have mentioned are a great starting point, 5 centimetres per second is still my favourite movie by Shinkai but I'm abit soft at times (Clannad and Planetes are my favourite all time animes). Metropolis is obviously based on the same book as Blade runner so is a really good companion piece, it blew me away when I saw it. (a quick aside Jay what do you think of the button push - Ray Charles song moment)

I would also add Redline as a complete popcorn, adrenaline joyfest.

Sword and the stranger - some of the animation is unbelievable, better perhaps than Mugens best moments in Champloo

Tsubasa Chronicles has a really interesting and tragic central premise.

Welcome to the NHK is really funny but also has some weight.

Bakemonogatari was amazing but I find it difficult to explain why

Samurai X (Can't remember the proper name, the kenshin OVA's) are still perhaps the pinacle.

There are tonnes of great stuff out there it all depends on what you are looking for.
Roy42

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by Roy42 »

Finally got around to seeing Eden of the East yesterday (as the movie Air Communication). Was pretty good.
User avatar
LaikaMuttnik
Member
Posts: 66
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 1:09 am
Location: From Japan; now in Liverpool UK

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by LaikaMuttnik »

New Ghost in the Shell anime is coming this year - called Ghost in the Shell: Arise.
New look, new director, new writer, new music... What's been announced so far doesn't convince me at all, to be honest, but I suppose I shouldn't yet judge until I see the proper announcement event which will be streamed online on 12 February...
"Ghost in the Shell Arise Anime to Launch in 2013" [Anime News Network]

On the other hand, here's a trailer for Katsuhiro Otomo's (Akira, Steamboy) new short film Combustible, which looks stunning!
Spoiler: show
User avatar
LaikaMuttnik
Member
Posts: 66
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 1:09 am
Location: From Japan; now in Liverpool UK

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by LaikaMuttnik »

Just realised this film hasn't been mentioned in this thread, so here it is; a trailer for 009 RE:CYBORG.
It's based on a popular Japanese manga Cyborg 009, which started in the 1960s and made into anime series and films a few times.
This brand new reboot is directed by Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series, Eden of the East) and has just finished the cinema showing in Japan this week. I can't wait to see it!
Spoiler: show
User avatar
Scrustle
Member
Posts: 2426
Joined: November 18th, 2012, 6:02 pm

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by Scrustle »

I've been paying more attention towards anime recently than I have done in a while, looking for new stuff to get in to, but I've been having trouble finding anything that seems to really interest me.

As I think I've mentioned in this thread before, I'm a big fan of Ghibli, but apart from that the only anime that have really seriously interested me have been Ergo Proxy, Death Note, and Initial D. I've seen some similar stuff that I thought was good, but not great, and since looking at all the stuff that's out there at the moment looks so off-putting I wondered if anyone could recommend something to me.

I'd like to see some more stuff that's maybe similar to what I'm already in to, but I'd like to branch out more since there's so much different stuff out there. But it seems there's just so many cliches of the medium that keep showing up everywhere that make me feel hesitant to check them out.

For example I have seen Ghost in the Shell, and while I generally like it, it suffers really badly from a problem you often see in other similar anime. Terrible pacing and massive amounts of people doing nothing but spouting endless exposition. I felt like nothing really happened until the last 10% of the film, and I was never really invested in, let alone even understanding the events that were supposedly going on the first time watching it. Akira had a similar problem, but was worse in some ways because of the voice acting and I assume how much had to be cut from the manga.

I also recently saw Jin-Roh, which I hear is supposed to be another of the best examples of anime out there. Again, I wasn't really that impressed. It had some interesting elements and was probably paced a little better than Ghost in the Shell and Akira, but I still couldn't tell you anything about the plot apart from a few events that happened near the start.

But in general sci-fi and cyberpunk style anime seems to get me more interested than most other stuff, so I was thinking about checking out Stand Alone Complex. I've heard it's actually better than the film, but is that so? Is it better paced? I assume since it's several series long it has more time to flesh things out, but I don't want to invest time and money in to it if it just turns out to be another disappointment. If anyone could recommend anything else similar that would be great too.

I'd also like to branch out in to other stuff, but like I mentioned before, most of it puts me right off. For example I was taking a look through the list of stuff available on CrunchyRoll, and while I didn't even recognise 99% of it, it mostly looked like that sickly, saccharine, banal, otaku pandering moe bull shit that seems to be everywhere at the moment. Stuff infinitely more drenched in bad cliche than stuff I've seen before. That said, I recently heard about a series called The Unlimited Hyobu Kyosuke which was on there, and that seems like it might be worth seeing. Anyone else seen it?

Sorry if my post is rambly and disjointed. It's late and I'm tired, and I was pretty much just writing out my own stream of consciousness as it was happening.
User avatar
LaikaMuttnik
Member
Posts: 66
Joined: September 2nd, 2012, 1:09 am
Location: From Japan; now in Liverpool UK

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by LaikaMuttnik »

I like all the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series (1st Season, 2nd Gig, Solid State Society) much better than the films - thoroughly written, great human drama that makes you feel for every character, on top of the sci-fi elements being awesome and believable.
However, it is of course much longer than films, and it's just my personal taste after all, so please don't blame me even if you decided to watch it and ended up feeling disappointed! ;)

Talking of Ghost in the Shell, more information on the forthcoming Ghost in the Shell: Arise has been announced. New director, new character design, new music, new voice cast... I'm so fond of everything about Stand Alone Complex, I have mixed feelings about this new one, but as it's set in an earlier era (before Motoko became "Major" in Public Security Section 9), it might actually be easier to accept than a reboot of the same era or a sequel... We'll see.
Spoiler: show
If you enjoyed Ergo Proxy and Death Note, you might find Serial Experiments Lain interesting (13-episode series from 1998) though it's quite avant-garde and might leave you rather confused.
Spoiler: show
The trailer for Makoto Shinkai's new film Kotonoha no Niwa (The Garden of Words) looks good. Glad it seems he's gone back to his own style of character drawing after his last film Children Who Chase Lost Voices looked too Ghibli-esque.
Spoiler: show
Talking of Ghibli, I just saw this fascinating storyboard drawn by Hayao Miyazaki back in 1980 as an idea for Princess Mononoke and later published as a picture book. It's a completely different story with the giant cat called Mononoke, but looks great and could have been another great film too! :)

Mononoke Hime (1980) - The Original Miyazaki Book
Todinho

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by Todinho »

I personaly dont like ghost in the Shell very much but it has some amazing episodes I just wish it had more of those,but talking about sci-fi anime I recently started watching Psycho-Pass and im finding very interesting so you might wanna check out a few episodes and see if you like it.
User avatar
Scrustle
Member
Posts: 2426
Joined: November 18th, 2012, 6:02 pm

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by Scrustle »

Serial Experiment Lain looks really good. In fact, at the end of watching that trailer I realised I've actually heard of it before. It came up on a Mega64 podcast I think, and it piqued my interest, but I couldn't find it for sale anywhere at the time.

That short Miyazaki story was pretty cool too. You can see where a lot of inspiration for later movies can from in that. It would be interesting to see that story made in to a film itself too.

Recently I also came across a really good anime series called Mushi-shi. Although it focuses around the events of a single man's journey, each episode is actually it's own little short story. I've only seen two episodes so far, but from what I gather each episode focuses around spiritual creatures called "mushi" and how they affect people's lives. The main character, Ginko, who is the "mushi master", goes around helping people who have problems with the mushi. It has quite a quiet and sombre tone, but I found it to be quite charming and affecting too. I've been looking for DVDs for it, but it I can't seem to find anywhere selling Volume 4, and the box set is Region 1 only.
User avatar
JaySevenZero
Admin
Posts: 2643
Joined: August 27th, 2012, 4:28 pm
Location: Liverpool, Europe, Earth
Contact:

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by JaySevenZero »

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a big appreciator of Katsuhiro Otomo work. Akira is hands down the best manga I ever read, followed very closely by his Domu - which, despite its fantastic, violent, yet very moving story has never been adapted into an anime (although the late Satoshi Kon once mentioned about making it). Anyway, Otomo-san has made another anime comprised of four shorts, similar to his 1995 work Memories.



Some excellent looking animation and I'll no doubt check this out when it becomes available.
User avatar
PressEscToExit
Member
Posts: 329
Joined: September 5th, 2012, 8:38 pm
Location: Scotland
Contact:

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by PressEscToExit »

JaySevenZero wrote:Domu - which, despite its fantastic, violent, yet very moving story has never been adapted into an anime (although the late Satoshi Kon once mentioned about making it)
I wonder if they'd have to make some pretty big changes to the cast of characters in an anime version - I remember being pretty shocked by how graphic the violence against very young kids is in Domu and I'm not so sure it would fly with a modern audience. Would love to see how Kon would've handled it.
User avatar
JaySevenZero
Admin
Posts: 2643
Joined: August 27th, 2012, 4:28 pm
Location: Liverpool, Europe, Earth
Contact:

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by JaySevenZero »

PressEscToExit wrote:I wonder if they'd have to make some pretty big changes to the cast of characters in an anime version - I remember being pretty shocked by how graphic the violence against very young kids is in Domu and I'm not so sure it would fly with a modern audience. Would love to see how Kon would've handled it.
There are only two children that are graphically shown getting killed (The slightly older child - the one in the cap - who is shot by the deranged Yoshikawa and later Yoshikawa's own son, who he also shoots himself), the rest of the deaths are adults, or in one case an older teenager. That said, I've wondered if there wasn't a similar reason the anime Akira was so radically changed from the original manga due to the shooting of several of the children (Takashi and Akira).

It would be a shame if they had to change anything in Domu since, despite its very dark story, it is both gripping and affecting arguably because of the use of children within the story. The friendship between Hiroshi Yoshikawa and Little Yo for example, which culminated in what was for me, the most heart breaking moment in the entire book. Although, I'd say if there was a single character that didn't really work within, it could perhaps be Mrs Tezuka (the crazy empty pram woman).
Roy42

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by Roy42 »

Finally got around to watching the other nine episodes of Madoka Magica this evening. Pretty fucking awesome, if a little dumb at the end. But then, I was kind of expecting it to end the way it did, more or less, so I guess I can't complain.

Incredibly affecting, surprisingly dark, and never fails to strike the perfect tone between hopeful and despairing. I definitely recommend it; not sure I'd really want to watch it a second time, though, which I guess is a little bit of a shame.
Todinho

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by Todinho »

Roy42 wrote:Finally got around to watching the other nine episodes of Madoka Magica this evening. Pretty fucking awesome, if a little dumb at the end. But then, I was kind of expecting it to end the way it did, more or less, so I guess I can't complain.

Incredibly affecting, surprisingly dark, and never fails to strike the perfect tone between hopeful and despairing. I definitely recommend it; not sure I'd really want to watch it a second time, though, which I guess is a little bit of a shame.
Yeah madoka kinda loses it's charm a bit during a second viewing but the animation and music alone make it worth it for me at least.
User avatar
PressEscToExit
Member
Posts: 329
Joined: September 5th, 2012, 8:38 pm
Location: Scotland
Contact:

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by PressEscToExit »

Anybody catch the new Evangelion movie yet? I thought it was probably the best so far from an action standpoint but a bit slight in terms of character stuff and loaded with messy exposition, especially in the last third. Glad they toned down the fan service from 2.22 though.

Also, I couldn't get subtitles for that Studio Ghibli section at the beginning. Any idea if I missed anything important? I'm assuming it showed
Spoiler: show
third impact?
Also, I just got the Trigun movie from Lovefilm. Hopefully get that watched tonight :)
Benjo321

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by Benjo321 »

Never saw the original Eva, but seen the first 2 re-do movies. Not sure when the third is out over here, didn't it only just get released in Japan?
User avatar
dezm0nd
Moderator
Posts: 4445
Joined: August 28th, 2012, 9:48 am
Location: Leighton Buzzard

Re: The anime discussion and recommendations thread

Post by dezm0nd »

I've only ever seen one anime/manga type show and that 10 years ago. It was called Ranma and to be honest, I found it very funny!

The quirks in the animation aren't entirely suited to my tastes but they did use them a lot in Pokemon which I also liked at the time.

Is there anything I really should be watching and I'm an idiot for not doing so?
Post Reply